Closed Bug 998777 Opened 10 years ago Closed 10 years ago

Use better-looking Devanagari fonts by default on Windows platform

Categories

(Core :: Layout: Text and Fonts, defect)

All
Windows 8
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

()

RESOLVED FIXED
mozilla31

People

(Reporter: cpdhutadmal, Assigned: jfkthame)

Details

Attachments

(2 files)

Attached image Devnagari Font.png
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:29.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/29.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20140417185217

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open Localized version (Hindi and Marathi) of Mozilla Firefox.
2. Check the localized strings.


Actual results:

Localized strings appear poor in terms of aesthetics as default font applied in Windows operating system is not too good.


Expected results:

Mozilla can use better Open Source fonts and ship the same with Mozilla products such as Firefox for Windows Operating System. The same font should be applied as default font.

A comparison of sample text using Windows 8 default font and Open Source font is attached with this bug as an example. Upper text is default. Lower text is using better font.
Jonathan / Simon, do you know where this belongs / who can drive this? :-)
Flags: needinfo?(smontagu)
Flags: needinfo?(jfkthame)
Moving this to Layout:Text. For Windows 8, at least, I think we should change the font prefs to choose Nirmala UI rather than Mangal as the default for Devanagari; IMO it looks much better.

Whether we can/should do anything on older versions of Windows, where Nirmala UI is not available, is another question. In general, I'm pretty hesitant to start bundling fonts in the Firefox desktop browser product; I think as a desktop application it should be using the resources of the host OS, as part of conforming to the look & feel of other applications running on the same system.
Component: Untriaged → Layout: Text
Flags: needinfo?(jfkthame)
Product: Firefox → Core
OS: Windows 7 → Windows 8
Hardware: x86_64 → All
Summary: Missing Aesthetically good looking fonts by default for Mozilla Products on Windows platform → Use better-looking Devanagari fonts by default on Windows platform
Version: 29 Branch → Trunk
Here's a possible update to the font prefs; IMO, this makes Devanagari pages (that don't otherwise override the fonts, e.g. by providing their own) look much better on Win8. Users on older Windows systems will still generally see Mangal, as Nirmala wasn't available there.
Attachment #8409676 - Flags: review?(smontagu)
Assignee: nobody → jfkthame
Status: UNCONFIRMED → ASSIGNED
Ever confirmed: true
Attachment #8409676 - Flags: review?(smontagu) → review+
Flags: needinfo?(smontagu)
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/412bc4b9dd92
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 10 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
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